


Still not disclosing our location

by wildechilde17



Series: Starbucks and infants [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Advent Calendar, F/M, Parent Clint Barton, Parent Natasha Romanov, Parent-Child Relationship, Protective Natasha Romanov, balance, hearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildechilde17/pseuds/wildechilde17
Summary: Clintasha Advent Calendar Day Twenty One: Senses





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenny/gifts), [Jasmine_marie_123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasmine_marie_123/gifts), [jbk598](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jbk598/gifts).



He is half asleep in the old arm chair in the living room when she climbs into his lap and kisses her way up his neck, he groans, “Tasha, you’re home,” before kissing her back. 

She is illuminated by the single lamp and there is the acrid smell of gun fire still clinging to her skin.  Her curls are dry and her eyes are bright. “You wanna try that again when it’s not technically sexual assault?” he asks.

“Perhaps,” she says softly, tugging on his grey sweater, “if you had been fully asleep.”  

“I’m getting old.”

“Not that old,” she says, the corner of her mouth curling upwards, “I wouldn’t leave you if I thought I could sneak up on you.” 

“We missed you,” he says, kissing her again. He slides his hands into her hair and slowly down her neck. She pulls away, resting her head against his shoulder, “Thought you’d be back in the morning.”

“I asked to be dropped off.”

“Asked?” he repeats, grinning against the top of her head. He runs his hand down her arm. 

“Gave them few other options,” she says and lifts her head from his shoulder. “Stop that!” 

“What?!”

“The head to toe." 

He grins again, “Can’t help it.” Then he lets the smile drop, “I’m supposed to have your six out there.”

She nods once and stands, “I’d tell you if I was hurt.”

“Eventually,” he says dryly.  He stretches and rubs his hands over his face.  He is getting old he has absolutely no idea what time it is. 

“She’s sleeping?” Natasha asks, when he stands feeling his left knee creak like an old ship. 

“Yeah, don’t wake her.”

“Why?” she rounds on him. 

“That little girl got more than her hair from you.” 

“What happened?” she says and there is no good way to tell her this.  No matter how small an incident, a scrape, a bruise, a stray tear and you might as well be delivering bad new to a lioness. 

“Ear infection,” he says and doesn’t flinch. “It’s okay, I spoke to Bruce, he’s told me which antibiotics to make her swallow.”

He walks into the kitchen, makes for the green tin with the tea in it. She follows, her face blank.

“When?” 

He shrugs, “She switched to sign sometime after breakfast. Didn’t want to play on the trampoline. When she didn’t answer for lunch and wouldn’t eat…” He’d wrapped his hand over her forehead and she pushed him away.  She was warm and more irritable than she ever was after she’d finally woken up. If she was Tasha’s little bird she was a little night owl, that much was for certain.

He looks up from the kettle he is filling, “She never says she doesn’t feel well. You know, if she’d…” He shakes his head, “Where did she learn she wasn’t allowed to ask for help?”

“You should have called,” Natasha says and he knows the careful blankness covers for panic and fury.

“Natasha, you were on your way home.” 

“She’s sick,” she says looking over her shoulder to the circle of nightlight marking the entrance to their daughter’s room. 

“She’s a fighter, you think she’s gonna let a little thing like her ear take her down.” So little. His miracle had pointed ears that made him sure she was made in part by magic.  

“She’s four,” Natasha says.

It was the wrong thing to say.  Natasha’s daughter was stubborn and wild and furiously bitter about things she wasn’t good at but she was always Natasha’s daughter. You would be shredded to pieces where you stood if you suggested she had to be more than a little girl who always wanted to play the Sheriff of Nottingham and had finally stopped eating the blue playdough.

“Don’t let her hear you say that. Almost five, remember, almost five.” He scoops the tea leaves into a mug.  “Tasha, you know I would have got you if she needed you.” 

“She doesn’t need me,” Natasha says and though it is quiet there is a roar to it.

“Don’t! That’s...” he says, leaving the tea, “Her favourite color was red today, told me I don’t say Elizabeth right. She loves you, she needs you, she missed you and if you weren’t already on your way back to us then I would have moved heaven and… “

She shakes her head like he is beginning to annoy her, “Bruce said she’s okay?”

“Her hearing and balance may be a little off for a few days but she just needs rest.”   

She’d spent the afternoon drawing pictures of the Hulk giving children vaccinations. At least that’s what she said it was and she had used a lot of green crayon. Everyone in her pictures had giant faces and spindly arms and hair that stood on end. She’d spent the afternoon with her head tilted like the world looked better on its side. 

“Rest,” Natasha says and by fractions of an inch she slumps.

“Just like her Mama.”

“Hearing and balance,” Natasha repeats. 

Hey, remember when we were terrified she might not get sick like other kids, he wants to ask, remember how stupid we were.

“It’ll come back and in the meantime she signs better than me most of the time.” And it’s not even that she needs to sign, she does it to force me to sign, who taught her how to manipulate the world like that? It sure as hell wasn’t me. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Natasha says leaning down over the counter.

He chuckles, “Peas in a pod the two of you.”  


End file.
